'Iona': Review

Dir/scr. Scott Graham. UK, 2015, 110 minutes

Writer-director Scott Graham follows up his 2012 debut Shell with Iona, another artfully composed remote-Scottish drama that’s stronger on character, performance and arresting setting than it is on storytelling. The tale of a single mother returning to her Inner Hebrides home with her teenage son to take refuge after a violent incident, Graham’s latest once again benefits from a striking isolated location and a timeless disconnect from modern life. But Ionawill need significant buzz building from its Edinburgh International Film Festival closing night premiere to much improve on Shell’s very modest £42,000 UK theatrical box-office.

Iona’s narrative is somehow both less convincing thanShell and more generically familiar, as a back story of betrayal and guilt is revealed

The story begins with a woman (Ruth Negga) resisting the sexual advances of a uniformed policeman on her kitchen floor. Her teenage son (newcomer Ben Gallagher) enters the room and intervenes, accidentally killing the man. Mother and son flee the scene, shoving the dead body into the trunk of their car, which they torch on a remote Scottish island location (Mull). The pair continues on foot, taking a ferry to another island (Iona). The woman, whose name is also Iona, is in her early 30s; son Billy, who goes by the name of Bull, is 15. The man Bull killed, we later learn, was Iona’s partner of 11 years.

In Shell, Graham presented an extreme scenario – a teenage girl’s incestuous relationship with her single father, living together at a far-flung Scottish petrol station – in a quietly composed manner that determinedly steered clear of melodramatic emoting. A similar quiet rigour is in evidence here, matching the soft Scottish accents and gentle pace of the island community. But the narrative is somehow both less convincing than Shell and more generically familiar, as a back story of betrayal and guilt is revealed, and the return of Iona impacts on the lives of widower Daniel (Douglas Henshall), his daughter Elizabeth (Michelle Duncan), her husband Matthew (Tom Burke) and their 14-year-old child Sarah (Sorcha Groundsell), who is carried around on the back of her father due to an accident that left her paralysed below the knee.

Scenes unhurriedly unfold, as Iona and Bull pitch in with strawberry picking, attend church and join the community at a ceilidh (a rare instance of music in a film that foregoes a composed score). Bull bonds with Matthew while helping him build a dry stone wall, and responds to Sarah’s burgeoning sexuality. Any investigation relating to the disappearance of Iona’s partner, or arising from the presumed discovery of his charred remains in the abandoned Mitsubishi Lancer, is not even hinted at – instead, risk of exposure arises solely from Bull’s anguished need for redemption. It’s an intriguing approach to storytelling, but not necessarily a good fit with a surprisingly dramatic denouement.

Performances are solid across the board, but maybe lacking an equivalent revelation to place alongside Shell’s Chloe Pirrie, who scooped Most Promising Newcomer at the British Independent Film Awards. Technical contributions are similarly impressive, with Shellcinematographer Yoliswa von Dallwitz making the most of the location’s long daylight hours, and Shell’s sound mixer Chris Campion another valued returnee.

Production company: Bard Entertainments

Producer: Margaret Matheson

Cinematography: Yoliswa von Dallwitz

Editor: Florian Nonnenmacher

Production design: Stephen Mason

Main cast: Ruth Negga, Ben Gallagher, Douglas Henshall, Tom Brooke, Sorcha Groundsell, Michelle Duncan